The sins of the father…
Creative Staff:
Story: Frank J. Barbiere
Art: Joe Bennett
What They Say:
In the stunning wake of Issue One’s shocking climax…where is SOLAR? What will massive doses of unstable radiation do to his family? And even if they survive, what horrors are lurking in the stars?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The opening issue of Solar: Man of the Atom definitely worked well for me as it played with science, showed the way the man under the costume ended becoming the thing that he is and laying down the foundation of how this particular part of the world works with his family and workplace. All of it is connected and it came together better than a lot of first issues do, especially since it actually felt like it was all forward momentum rather than just the promise of things to happen and become something. While our title character wasn’t in it as much as one might think, it was useful because we got to understand the key members of his immediate family as we learned how Phil’s kids, Colin and Erica, have handled having him for a father by going completely different routes. It’s not a surprise to see one reject him entirely while the other uses him to be able to get something out of him. Unfortunately, as we saw, it all went to hell in a hand basket pretty quick with a whole lot of destruction.
For Colin, the fallout is in the business side where he’s now trying to figure out the best way to keep the company going by doing what needs to be done. There’s a lot of curiosity in the ruins to see what can be salvaged and saved, but it’s born out that Phil didn’t do backups and kept all of it in his head, which is an impressive feat in and of itself. That doesn’t help Colin, but I like that the approach he takes is smart business at the first without going into villainous territory or anything. He has a lot at stake at the business and plenty of vipers in the pit he resides in, but there’s always this sense of control about him even as he really does want to know what happened and how it all played out, particularly since Phil’s assistant that had come to him previously has now gone missing as well. The mysteries expand nicely here without being too much and still feeling grounded in reality.
The other piece of the family that gets explored is Erica, who definitely suffered in just as strong but different way from what happened. After taking such a huge dose of radiation, she’s in the hospital and recovering in a way that makes no sense to the doctors. Something about the incident has fundamentally changed her though, but she’s mostly just struggling to latch onto something normal even as Dave keeps being rather nervous and inquisitive about what happened to her. That keeps her wary without realizing, but it’s just the start of her problems as she seems to have taken on the abilities that her father had – and his personality? There’s a phantom version of him that she can see that’s talking to her inside her head, showing her the way to use his abilities in order to deal with the alien that has just burst into the hospital to kill her. It’s chaotic and almost nonsensical here, but it’s part of the larger mystery that’s being explored.
The fun of it is that we see how Phil has made an impact on both of his children. With Colin, it’s all business with some real empathy and sadness going on in there that’s masked by what must be done. He doesn’t come across as a cardboard cutout character at the moment and that’s a huge plus. But his story is smaller compared to what Erica is going through. You can imagine she thinks she’s going through a breakdown, but there’s so much going on that there’s no time to think about it. With her father’s words in her head and seeing the world the way he did, even a little, it looks like she’s going to be sharing these things with him for a bit which could lead to some interesting conversations between the two since it’s obvious there are bigger things coming that they’re going to have to deal with.
In Summary:
Similar to the first issue, I really like the pacing of it her with the story and the dialogue but also the panel layouts and the smoothness of it all. There’s not as many backgrounds or locales to work with so it’s a little more workaday, but there’s a lot of fun once things get weird and we see what Joe Bennett can bring to the table. With Barbiere’s writing, I’m definitely liking it but I’m disliking the approach of the swearing. Either say it outright or choose other words since for older readers it just feels too cheesy while younger readers likely already know it if they’re even buying comic books. So just substitute for other words or be frank rather than straddling the line here and looking awkward. But that’s the only real complaint I have here as Solar: Man of the Atom offers up more intrigue and potential for this classic Gold Key character that deserves to be a big part of any comics lineup.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: May 21st, 2014
MSRP: $3.99
